Hello (from the flip side of theomancy)
by The Readers Muse
Summary: Let's try this again.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Another of those: 'because I needed to speak to my feelings after 6x03,' of fics. *This fic is based around the idea of how Nicholas' disassociation throughout the episode really reminded me of Jim's 'seer'-like abilities in season one. I thought it would be interesting to examine if, at the beginning of 6x03, when Glenn had to pull him out of his thoughts, Nicholas had actually just experienced that entire episode in a flash and was suddenly back in the present, about to start the same chain of events. Only, what if he actively tried to change it?

 **Warnings:** spoilers for 6x03 – allusions to season one, 6x03 fix-it, angst, drama, adult language, adult themes, happier ending(ish), light shipping elements between Nicholas/Glenn but can be read as general, ust, enemies to friendamies to maybe something a little bit more.

 **Hello (from the flip side of** **theomancy** **)**

" _Look at me! Hey! Hey! Nicholas! Look at me!"_

 _"Thank you…"_

 _"No! Nic- "_

* * *

"Nicholas?"

His head jerked up, disoriented and unstable. Mind reeling as he found himself all the way back at the beginning. Before the herd and the town and the chill press of gun-metal against his skin. Whole. Untouched. Lingering aches and pains from the fight a few weeks or so earlier throbbed low like a reminder as the after-images of everything that had happened before he'd pulled the trigger rewound in his head like it was nothing.

 _What the fuck?_

 _He didn't understand._

 _This couldn't-_

He kept his gun up and alert as the other's circled around Annie – twisted ankle, _again_. Meeting then skirting Glenn's assessing stare as he looked around him. Blinking and unsure as the others weaved and condensed. A familiar dance of action and inaction, pauses and minor detail. Things he'd filed away or hadn't even noticed the first time around. Things like how Glenn was still favoring his shoulder and how Michonne's hair looked – sable and softly stark – against her shoulders. Things like how he never quite let Glenn out of his sight even when the man was trying his best to put some distance between them. How Annie-

Barnes. David. Annie. Sturgess.

They were all fine - alive.

 _He was alive._

 _How?_

Just like before, he was struggling not to wheeze on bruised lungs and aching ribs. Feeling every second of the beating Glenn had given him but pushed through it regardless. A headache throbbed between his temples, blurring the very edges of his vision in a way that made everything feel over-saturated and painfully real.

This was real.

It had to be.

So, was all this just- déjà vu or something?

He hadn't been sleeping.

He didn't like what he saw when he stared at his eyelids anymore.

Truth be told, he never had.

It had just been easier to bury before.

 _Before Glenn._

"Alright, come on, grab on. Let's go," Glenn urged, slinging Annie's arm over his shoulder as he helped her up the hill.

He trailed after, making sure their flank was protected. Feeling slightly unsteady as he blinked through a weird sort of double vision. Remembering in off-centred rushes how much he'd wanted to make things right. How shaky and unstable he'd felt inside his own skin. Knowing he wasn't ready for this, but desperate to step up when he was needed. Desperate to learn, to understand the world the way Glenn and Michonne did. To be counted on for the right reasons and to show Glenn that he could be trusted. That he could make it. That he could-

 _Oh-_

 _Oh, Jesus fuck._

He closed his eyes, trying to block it out. All the mistakes. All the consequences. All the slips of fate and unintended actions that had led them into that town and down that alley way with no way out. Cornered and out of options. Knowing somehow – impossible piled on top of impossible – that it hadn't ended there, with him. Glenn somehow Glenn hadn't made it either, somehow as he'd fallen Glenn must have-

 _He'd killed them both._

For a single burning moment he was irrationally, incriminatingly angry. Angry that he couldn't even have _this_. An ending of his own choosing without someone else paying the price for it. Angry that even when he tried - _really tried_ \- everything still went right to shit. That even when he stepped up for all the right reasons he still got people killed.

The world wasn't fair - he'd figured that out a long time ago. But this? This was a whole other level of shit. Worse, he only had himself to blame. So yeah, for that one, flicker-flash of a second, he _let_ himself be angry. Then he pushed past it. Taking a deep breath as he sunk his teeth into the inside of his cheek and set his shoulders - determined.

 _Let's try this again._

* * *

Glenn came to him that night huddled up on watch, hands quietly shaking as he tried to sip the tea – A full thermos of his favorite that Annie had slipped into his hands when he'd volunteered for a double shift after they'd made it back to Alexandria. Thanking him with her eyes, like he hadn't heard the same out of her lips a dozen times since they'd limped back home, when he'd dipped his head and ducked out into the night.

They'd still lost David and Sturgess.

But the rest of them?

They'd made it.

 _They'd all made it._

"How did you know?" Glenn opened. Face half in shadow as he settled beside him on the fold out bench someone had shoved into a corner of the lookout before nightfall. "Back there, in the forest? I could see it, couldn't you? Somehow you knew."

He took deliberate mouthful, giving himself time to think. Wincing a bit as the sugar Annie added made the tips of his molars ache. He was surprised Glenn had noticed something, but somehow not as surprised as he expected to be. After all, the reason why they'd made it at all was because somehow – for some reason he didn't quite understand – Glenn had trusted him.

He looked off at a distance point in the star-specked black. Remembering how the man's expression had shifted in the shadowed-dark of the pet store when he'd tried to explain it. Knowing their options were beyond low. Knowing that if they didn't move, _and move now_ , it would all end up like it had before.

" _I don't know what will work, but I know what won't. We can't split up. If we stay together we might make it. Trust me. Please."_

He didn't want to talk about it.

It was too raw.

 _Too real._

And maybe Glenn knew it, because after a few skips in the silence, he started talking again.

"There was a guy in our group, in the beginning. We were up in this quarry just outside of Atlanta after the military lost control – before they fire bombed everything. We were lucky. We made it out. There was still a line of gridlock all the way back to the barricades when the helicopters came through. Everyone. All those people that'd been in the safe zone? Most of them were just- gone. I was in an RV with a bunch of others, and when we saw this car and station wagon head down a side road that angled towards the quarry, we followed them. Jim was with us. We picked him up on the side of the road just outside of town – alone. I don't think he said a word to anyone for maybe, _god_ , two or three days?" Glenn continued, hands curled tight around the brace of his thighs like he needed the force to ground him. Eyes glinting-dark and far away as he watched the man out of the corner of his eyes. Not trusting himself to keep his expression more or less flat if he met them.

Glenn was the last person he needed watching him struggle.

He was barely hanging on as it was.

 _God, he was tired._

"He was quiet, kept mostly to himself. Well, other than Dale. They were always working under the hood of the RV. He was a mechanic so I guess that was how he dealt with it – with what had happened – he tried to fix things," Glenn commented, suddenly making him wonder what he'd done while Jim was wedged under the RV hood.

 _How had he dealt with it?_

 _How had he bridged that gap between the person he'd been to the person he had to be?_

It wasn't until they'd arrived in Alexandria that he'd realized there was a difference.

That there _had_ to be a difference.

"I wasn't there when he did it, but one morning, barely a day before walkers attacked camp, he started digging up in the clearing. Digging graves. _He knew,"_ Glenn affirmed, shaking his head as they looked off into the dark together.

He twitched, a jerky half-aborted movement that Glenn noticed but didn't comment. Something that stank of guilt and perhaps something a bit more – something like forgiveness or maybe even a pathetic sliver of hope. Hope for something like what Glenn had with-

"You knew because you were there. _You saw it_ ," Glenn murmured, shifting just so that he could almost feel the ghost of their shoulders brushing. "I am not asking, but- I'm grateful. I have a feeling that whatever it was, you did what you could to make things right. That's all anyone can ask, Nicholas."

He looked over at him through the blur of still-swollen cheeks. Seeing them in his peripheral vision as he set his mug of tea down against the lip of the watchtower wall with an unsteady thump. Fighting down half a dozen conflicting emotions as luke-warm tea trickled stickily between his fingers. Too exhausted to keep track of his tongue as he tucked his chin into the curl of his collar. Wondering if it was possible to regret the words that hadn't made it out yet as he cleared his throat and lost what was left of his filter.

"I'm not ready," he admitted softly, so quiet the words came out like a ragged whisper. "But I want to be, for you."

It was the type of admission that should have dropped like a bombshell. That would have made him suck in a breath and wait for the rejection. Wait for Glenn to recoil slowly, maybe even let him down easy – kindly. After everything he'd done, he'd understand. More than understand. But instead of making it cut and dry he nearly choked on his own spit when Glenn gave him a nudge, a fledgling half-smile taking up residence on the man's face as he flailed internally. Completely unprepared for anything other than passive aggressive disgust or worse- _pity_.

"I know," Glenn hummed, soft and rough around the edges in a way he hadn't heard before. Something new and just for him as brown eyes flashed warm in the low light of the lantern. "I've seen it. You're trying. There's always a way out. Always a better option. Even when you can't seem to see it, you learn. …I think we're getting there."

His shoulders slumped – deflating. Bleeding relief and maybe something a little bit stronger into the air that mingled between them like a living red. Coagulating. _Healing._

"Get some sleep, Nicholas."

"I can't," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders reflexively to ease the tension as he rubbed at the back of his neck. Skin overwarm and head all floaty – a sure sign of exhaustion. Everything was compounding, folding down on him at once. It was like dominos, but with a human cost. He still had four hours on watch before he could even think about sleep. He'd only gotten a few hours here and there anyway. It had been a fight to keep himself busy, to take his mind off things. How could he sleep after everything that had-

"Try," Glenn urged, less a request than an order but something in him stilled nonetheless. Blinking with heavy lids as Glenn unclipped his holster and set his Glock on the bench between them. "I'll be here. Try."

He wasn't sure what it meant – what it said about them – when he nodded off less than a half an hour later. Soothed and safe by the solid pressure of Glenn sitting shoulder to shoulder beside him. Unable to help but read into it as his chin dipped into his chest and his breathing sank deep, feeling heavy – weightless but with substance – as the man hummed something low and wordless into the building frost.

And for the first time in a long time, the dreams didn't come.

* * *

 **A/N #2: ** Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.

 **Reference:**

 _Theomancy_ _:_ divination by the responses of oracles supposed to be divinely inspired.


End file.
